My Fun Weekend!

I had a really fun weekend and felt that it was blog worthy. Friday night I went to work as usual and was greeted by two Darth Vaders who solemnly confessed that they were going to kill me. We spent the evening destroying things with our light sabers, including the star wars village that we rebuilt several times for the purpose of wrecking. They are going through a star wars phase right now and when I have nights like this, I just think "I am so excited for my boy".

Saturday morning my sister-in-law Heather and her two daughters Alicey and Olivia came with me to a Puppet festival in Salt Lake. It was pretty awesome!

These are my two nieces. We were collecting some free puppet-making stuff.

This puppeteer has been in the business for 50 years and his show was incredible! This isn't the greatest picture, but he somehow made it look like his marionette blew up that balloon. All of his acts blew my mind. His name was Freddie Spencer is anyone wants to look him up.

The guy on the right is actually one of Hank's professors, that's how I knew about the show. He handmade all of his marionettes. His show was a really quirky Shakespeare themed performance. Hank helped with some of the recorded voices, which was fun to hear. I was really impressed. His name is Nat Reed.

After the puppet festival my wonderful sister-in-laws threw me a baby shower! This the whole getting ready picture... We ate

 played Games

And opened presents... it was such a blast, I felt so loved! 

California Competition

I haven't updated in forever! I now have something interesting to post so it's very exciting. Hank and I spent a week in Fullerton, California at a KCACTF competition. It's a theater festival/scholarship competition. You have to get nominated by a representative from the festival in order to go. Hank of course got nominated. In order to compete you have to pick a scene partner and prepare two scenes and one monologue. Well, Hank asked me to be his partner! So Hank and I got to have a free week in California, with our own hotel room! It was a weird festival, but we didn't mind because we had so much fun being together.



We went up a few days early to see our family, which was wonderful.It just so happened that my Dad was in an art show at that time, so we got to go see his work. I am so proud of him. He won first place in his category, with a pastel picture of a snapple bottle. The picture the family is in front of isn't his winning picture, but still beautiful!



This is Hank and I with our festival badges, we were very official.



This is right after we performed our scene. Professors from colleges all over came to the festival to respond to people's scenes so everyone who performed could get some feedback. Please excuse me as I brag a little, but our respondent was pretty blunt to everyone in our group. I was worried we were going to get ripped on, but when she came to us she was very complimentary. That made it fun for me...especially since we didn't get to go to semi-finals.



It was actually really nice not having to worry about competing for the rest of the week, because Hank and I got to spend a lot of time just vacationing. I am glad we got this time together because after little Sam is born our life is going to be a lot different. This is a picture of us at the best yogurt place in the world, Yogurtland! Oh how I wish there was one here in Utah!



Yes your eyes are not deceiving you, this is a picture of Hank and I next to Buster from Arrested Development! He was one of the finalist judges at the festival. He was was really nice...of course.

Pregnant Pictures

I haven't done a very good job documenting my growth as a pregnant lady. I have one picture from 16 weeks and one from 20 weeks, but that's about it. I mentioned this to my sister over the Christmas break and since she is a professional photographer she suggested that I should allow her to take some maternity pictures of my belly. It's pretty nice having someone as talented as my sister around for these occasions. Below are the result of our photo shot. I think it's good timing because I am now six months along. When my sister showed my Dad the pictures he was flabbergasted that I would show my bare belly in pictures. Oh how times have changed. Now I have to figure out a way to get her to magically transport to Utah when I am 8 months along and really looking pregnant. Hope you enjoy!

Boy or Girl?...

So Hank and I had our first ultrasound and we know the sex of our baby!!! But first the results from the questionnaire:

We asked 30 people

17 people said girl

13 people said boy

...and the right answer is...lets see if you can see it for yourself (sorry about the bad quality of these images, I don't have a scanner)



This is baby's head. The ultrasound guy called it the "Monster face pose". Baby moved around so much and was curled up the whole time, so we didn't get a profile. I still think baby is cute.



I know it blurry, but you can barely make out where it says gender...I think its pretty apparent, we are going to have a hearty, healthy, well endowed...BOY!

So that means everyone can welcome Henry Samuel Florence V to the family. We have another ultrasound picture of little Sam yawning. It shows his nose. After the ultrasound guy pointed it out to us he typed "Dad's big nose". So little Sam already has some Henry characteristics. I am thrilled as all can be, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the idea of little Sam being a nice big brother someday. It is also exciting because little Sam will be my parent's first Grandson. I am already feeling like the 5 months of sickness have been worth it. Like I said I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cultural Festival

Hank and I went up to West Valley on Saturday to see the cultural/winter festival. It was so fun!



They had this "Trees of Diversity" competition, where a variety of Christmas trees were displayed that represented different cultures. The viewers got to vote for their favorite. We voted for the Bali tree, because it was the best one...obviously.



We were so lucky because for the time we were there they had Chinese musicians and singers as the live music portion of the day. It was sorta romantic because it brought memories back to us from China.



What a nice group of people.



This isn't the greatest picture, but you can kind of see all the venders. For me anyway, it's always fun to look at creative little crafts people in the commmunity are selling.



Hank and I NEVER do this, but we actucally bought a few things from the venders. Maybe it was the Chinese music that promoted the buys. Hank got a beanie and I got a necklace. I believe they are both very attractive. Anyway, we had so much fun and it was the perfect outing to start up the holiday season.

Diantha's Crossing Premier

We went to Hank's premier for "Diantha's Crossing" last night and it was pretty awesome. This was a movie he was in the church produced and was basically put together by BYU students, except for a few professionals. I was really impressed with it. It's historical, about a woman who grew up in the early church and the movie takes place near the end of her life. It address a lot of universal themes and isn't cheesy or contrived. The production value was incredible and of course the acting was amazing. I posted a link in a earlier post that has a clip of the movie. The clip doesn't really make sense if you haven't seen the movie but it does show the acting and the production value. For those who have KBYU keep your eyes open for this movie, because as far as I know that's all the distribution it is getting right now. I hope they do more with it.



This is Tom Russel, the director. He's a really funny guy and randomly knows Hank's uncles Scott and Mckay. He made a great movie. I hope he gets it into some film festivals.



This woman starred in the movie. She wrote the original version which was a one woman show. She was SO good. She is also the head of the acting track program at BYU. She is going to direct Macbeth this winter with Hank as Macbeth...I am so proud!



Our supportive friends! I don't have a picture of her but Mandy's roommate Diantha came. Mandy said she had to come because her name was Diantha. I thought was so sweet that she actually did!

Halloween Weekend

Here are some pictures from Halloween!



I saw Hank's show Sweeney Todd Thursday night. Hank was of course so funny and awesome. The show was outside which ended up being really neat being it was a really warm autumn evening. It got me in the mood for Halloween. This is a picture of him with the director of the show, Mindy. She's so cool, Hank and I both knew her previously from BYU.



Our niece Alicey is taking some treats during our trick or treating adventure. She is dressed as a chicken. She is so funny, half of her candy was already eaten before we got home. If you notice, Hank is way more into this than she is. I can't wait to see how he acts with his own kids.



All the world needs is a few more babies dressed up in costumes.



Hank loves his nephew Calvin, and I think its easy to see why.